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ANKARA: Explained: Kobane Or Ayn Al-Arab?

EXPLAINED: KOBANE OR AYN AL-ARAB?

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Oct 28 2014

ISTANBUL

Kobane, a dusty town on Syria's border with Turkey, has been a
battleground between the defending Syrian Kurdish forces and the
besieging militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
for weeks. As the fighting continues to rage, the etymology of the
town's name is now also being contested.

"I don't want to get involved in the debate about whether this town
belongs to the Arabs or the Kurds. But as a matter of fact, as befits
the name, it is called Ayn al-Arab ["Arab Spring" in Arabic]. This
name was then turned into Kobane," Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan told a group of journalists on his way back to Ankara from
Estonia on Oct. 25.

But where does "Kobane" come from?

Nobody disputes that the town is a relatively new settlement. Before
the 20th century, it was just a water meadow where even great
commanders like Saladin used to feed the horses of his army. For a long
time, it was referred to as Arab PunarÄ± ("Arab Spring" in Turkish).

Muhsin KÄ±zÄ±lkaya, a writer of Kurdish origin, told private
Turkish broadcaster CNN Turk on Oct. 13 that Kobane was not even a
small village at the turn of the century. "The Germans set a small
station there while building the Baghdad Railway. A new settlement
was developed around the construction and locals called it Kobane,
in reference to the German 'company' that built a road in the area,"
he said.

The rendering of "company" as "Kobane" seems logical at first glance,
considering the fact that both Kurds and Arabs adapt many Western
words by changing the letter "m" to "b."

Historically, however, the "company theory" sounds weak, as Germans
use the word "Gesellschaft" for business companies. "Kompanie,"
on the other hand, refers to military units.

Others have suggested that the middle part of the name Kobane
could come from the German word "bahn" (road). In fact, Anatolische
Eisenbahn, a German company, built the landmark Baghdad Railway,
which some historians see as one of the causes of the First World War.

After connecting Istanbul to Konya via Ankara in the 1890s, Anatolische
Eisenbahn started to build the second phase of the railroad that would
link Konya to Aleppo. "German engineers built a small station in the
area. This was the first time that Arab PunarÄ± was put on the map,
in 1912," daily Milliyet columnist AslÄ± AydÄ±ntaÅ~_baÅ~_ wrote on
Oct. 13.

At the time, Arab PunarÄ± was a remote railroad station with a few
shacks around, while nearby Urfa was a sprawling multicultural city
of Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Armenians. Suruc, a district of Urfa, was
the closest settlement to Arab PunarÄ± with a significant population,
lying just across the railroad.

"Actually, Arab PunarÄ± first appeared on the stage of history during
the Armenian massacres in 1915," AydÄ±ntaÅ~_baÅ~_ also added.

Soon after Turkey entered the First World War as an ally of Germany,
it decided for the mass deportation of Ottoman Armenians, who it
accused of revolting and aiding the enemy on the eastern front, the
Russians. Arab PunarÄ± became one of the "transit centers" for the
Ottoman Armenians deported from the Eastern Anatolian town of Sivas
to the remote deserts of Syria.

In his two-volume book, "The Armenian Genocide" French-Armenian
historian Raymon Kevorkian writes that 120-170 people were dying due
to illness each day in late 1915 at the Arab PunarÄ± camp, where some
15,000 Ottoman Armenians had been placed.

Germany and the Ottoman Empire ultimately lost the war before a new
border was drawn between Turkey and Syria based on the Sykes-Picot
Agreement that Britain and France had secretly signed in 1916. The
German-made railroad was determined as the mark for the border by
the victors of the war. Hence, Suruc was left to Turkey while Arab
PunarÄ± was now on the Syrian side of the border.

The new, independent Turkey has complained of armed groups crossing
the border near Arab PunarÄ± since the 1920s. After a Kurdish uprising
was quelled by Ankara in 1925, several tribes crossed the border in
the opposite direction, from Turkey to Syria, thus increasing the
Kurdish population in Arab PunarÄ±. The town became melting pot of
Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and Turkmens, and many of its districts and
surrounding villages still bear Turkish names.

Right up to the independence of Syria, a French intelligence
headquarters was maintained in Arab PunarÄ± by the land's colonial
authorities, according to AydÄ±ntaÅ~_baÅ~_. French agents were based
there to control the porous border, upon Turkey's insistent requests
to stop smugglers and armed groups.

"When the modern state of Syria was founded, the regime renamed
the town Ayn al-Arab, in line with its 'Arabization' policy,"
AydÄ±ntaÅ~_baÅ~_ added. The demography of the area was slowly altered
once again.

Today, most Kurds refer to the town as Kobane, while Arabs prefer
to stick to Ayn-al Arab. The Turkish authorities oscillate between
both names, weary of the political war of words that goes hand in
hand with the ongoing street battles in the town.

Meanwhile, almost everyone has forgotten the true origins of the name
referring to Arabs in Turkish, as well as the town's history, which
is full of tragedies for many people, including Armenians and Kurds.